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Tuesday, 10 June 2014

Reboots with Operation 021

“I don’t do this anymore,” says Shaan Shahid as
he wears his Ray-Bans and walks away from the camera in a scene from Waar
(2013). It is a significant one-liner,
not only for the storyline of the highest-grossing Pakistani film, but also to
Shaan’s personal narrative as an actor, who does not sport the ‘gujjar’ look
anymore.

From playing the eponymous hero in Moosa Khan
(2001) to Major Mujtaba in Waar, Shaan has stood the test of time and his fans
have remained loyal to him. As he gears up for the release of his
much-anticipated film Operation 021, the actor looks back in time only to look
forward.

“You just have to believe in Almighty, your own
soil and people,” says Shaan, not sounding any different from the many
patriotic characters that he has played over time. “How much you believe in
them is going to reflect on how much they believe in you and that’s where
success lies.”

With a multitude of hits and misses under his
belt, the 43 year old justifies that his film choices have been driven by what
the industry has had to offer at a given time. But for him, the roaring success
of Waar has been a game changer. He feels that it is because of Waar that
upcoming films have better prospects, not only at the box office but also in
terms of representing Pakistani cinema on the global stage.

This is why Shaan hopes to share the true
Pakistani narrative with the rest of the world rather than the one that
international cinema likes to project about Pakistan. “We don’t need someone to
come and make a Zero Dark Thirty for us, especially when it’s our story to tell
and when we have the capability of telling better stories,” he says. “Pakistan
is the ‘Ricodic’ of powerful stories. Just imagine the kind of romance,
suspense, horror and tragedy [films] that can be churned out of a country that
has undergone 20 years of war and is still fighting one.”

Patriotism and Shaan go side by side and that
was also one of the main reasons behind the success of Waar. And from the
wardrobe and styling of Shan in Operation 021, it seems that the film will take
a similar course.

If Waar was about fight sequences and
ballistics, Operation 021 is about mind games and revolves around the idea that
it’s important to strive to save what you love. “There is a thin line between
the characters one chooses to play in an action film because at the end of the
day, it’s all about the hero getting off the bike while maintaining the crease
of his pants,” comments Shaan. That is the kind of cinema that Shaan likes and
also the kind he believes people want to watch: suspension of disbelief at its
best.

“At present, we need more people to watch a film
than like it,” he quips. For Shaan, Operation 021 was an opportunity to see the
extent to which Pakistani filmmakers aspire to be as good as those in
Hollywood. He has been pleasantly surprised by the way Zeba Bakhtiar, Jaami,
Azan Sami Khan and Summer Nicks have made a film that is at par with any
good-quality Hollywood film.

“Hollywood is the way to go and so are China and
Turkey, not because I have something against Bollywood, but just because the
rest are better storytellers,” clarifies Shaan and explains that this is how
Indians made Bollywood an internationally recognised industry.

“The Yash Chopras and other bigwigs of Bollywood
sent generations of filmmakers to all these places to learn and educate
themselves in storytelling,” says Shaan. He believes that this is how the new
wave of Indian filmmakers has surfaced. “[These are] the ones who rely less on
mythology and more on original content and that is the only way to create and
support Pakistan’s new wave of talent.”

Although notorious for his anti-Bollywood
statements, the actor with the most number of films in Pakistan is more worried
about the Karachi and Lahore industry divide than that between India and
Pakistan.

He believes that ‘gujjar’-centric films were
never owned by media practitioners in Karachi and Lahori artistes always felt
alienated from the growing drama industry of Karachi. These discrepancies gave
artistes someone to blame their shortcomings on and more so, put them in a
comfort zone that they needed to be taken out from.

“The requirement of the television industry is
286 dramas in a year, which is great and also a well-paying avenue for artistes
who want to make more money by repeating the same thing,” a concerned Shaan
comments.

“But someone has to think big, not only in terms
of an audience, but also in terms of the big screen because if we all play it
safe, then who is going to take risks? Industries are made by risk takers and
game changers, not followers.”

Operation 021 is slated for an August 14 release
and will be the first Pakistani film ever to release in 22 countries
simultaneously including tje United Kingdom, the United States and the United
Arab Emirates.